Chapter Four: The Archives of Thorns

The black rose stared at her like an omen.

Its petals were as dark as void, so dark they seemed to drink in the moonlight. Aria reached out and touched it — soft, cold, and very real. Her breath hitched.

No note. No messenger. No mistake.

It had been placed deliberately.

She clutched the windowsill, trying to calm her racing pulse. The dream, the fire, the voice — and now this?

Aria didn’t believe in coincidence anymore.

“Maren,” she whispered, throwing on her robe and lighting a lantern. “Wake up. Now.”

By the time Maren arrived — hair tousled, dagger tucked into her belt — Aria had already sealed the rose inside a glass perfume bottle.

Maren studied it with narrowed eyes. “That… is a Blackshade bloom. Grows only in the Hollow Vale. They’re poisonous. Rare. Illegal to harvest without imperial permission.”

Aria raised an eyebrow. “So not something a friendly suitor would leave on my windowsill?”

“Unless your suitor is a court assassin.”

“Noted.”

Maren circled the room, checking windows and shutters. “You locked the door?”

“Yes.”

“No other footprints?”

Aria shook her head. “None I could see. But… there was a dream.”

Maren stilled.

“I was back in the banquet hall,” Aria said, voice low. “The fire was everywhere. And someone stood in the center. Cloaked. Red. They said… ‘You weren’t supposed to live.’”

Maren exhaled slowly. “A seer’s dream.”

“A what?”

“A vision. Rare. Dangerous. They usually come to magic-blooded nobles or people touched by death.”

Aria looked at her. “I’ve been both.”

The next day passed in heavy silence. Eris didn’t mention the black rose, and Aria didn’t bring it up. Instead, she practiced her court smile in the mirror, studied the layout of the Imperial Palace, and prepared for the secret meeting.

Maren protested, of course.

“I don’t like this,” she said that evening, tightening Aria’s cloak. “Sneaking into cursed libraries to meet vanished lords sounds like the beginning of a ghost story.”

“I’m counting on it,” Aria said, tucking a hidden dagger into her sleeve. “Ghosts always know the truth.”

“Then promise me this,” Maren said, eyes hard. “If something feels wrong, you run. You don’t fight. You run.”

Aria hesitated — then nodded. “I promise.”

The Archives of Thorns lay beneath the oldest wing of the city’s temple district, where even the stone wept with age. Aria moved silently through the cloisters, her cloak drawn tight, her boots muffled by dust.

The city’s streets had been empty — eerie, quiet. As if the whole of Elarion slept more deeply than usual.

She found the entrance: a carved archway overgrown with vines. A forgotten door. With one deep breath, she pushed it open.

A staircase descended into shadow.

The air was heavy. Thick with dust and old magic.

The Archives weren’t like normal libraries. These shelves leaned like dying trees, their spines cracked, their titles glowing faintly in arcane script. Books whispered. Scrolls trembled.

And at the center of the vast underground hall stood a single figure, cloaked in navy, holding a lantern.

Sir Lorian Caelum.

“You came,” he said, voice quiet.

“You answered,” Aria replied, stepping into the light.

Lorian looked exactly as she remembered from the illustrations — a man in his late twenties, with silver-blond hair bound in a short braid, a long scar cutting through one brow. Once a loyal knight of House Caelum, now a ghost among the living.

He studied her. “You’re not the girl I remember.”

“I’m not,” Aria said simply. “But I need your help.”

He hesitated, then nodded toward a quiet alcove. They sat beside a long-forgotten ledger. Dust rose in clouds.

“I’ve only heard whispers of what happened to you,” he said. “The fire. Your death. And now… you’re alive, walking the gardens, writing me letters? Who are you really, Lady Aria?”

Aria looked him in the eye. “Someone who remembers things they shouldn’t. Someone who believes the fire wasn’t an accident.”

Lorian stiffened. “You’re right. It wasn’t.”

She held her breath.

“I was investigating a secret sect before the fire,” Lorian said. “A cult hidden within the court — nobles who deal in blood magic, forbidden contracts. They call themselves The Crownless Flame.”

The name struck her like lightning.

“They’re real?”

“Oh yes,” Lorian said bitterly. “And they’re growing.”

He opened a small, worn notebook and slid it toward her.

Inside were hand-sketched symbols: a phoenix engulfed in fire, rings marked with bone-script, names with lines scratched violently through them.

“I think one of them was at the banquet,” he said. “I think they caused the fire. And I think you were the target.”

Aria’s voice trembled. “Why me?”

Lorian shook his head. “I don’t know. But you weren’t supposed to survive.”

Their conversation stretched into the depths of night.

Lorian shared all he knew: strange disappearances, dead seers, hidden runes etched into noble walls. He’d gone into hiding after the banquet, faking his own death.

“And now you’re risking everything to speak with me,” Aria said.

“I thought it was madness. But when your letter came…” He looked at her closely. “There’s something different about you. And not just your words.”

Aria lowered her voice. “If I want to live, I need to know everything. I need proof. I need allies.”

“Then you’ll have them.”

They sealed their pact with ink, blood, and a whisper in the archives.

Outside, Aria paused at the old vine-covered entrance. The city was still eerily silent. Too silent.

That’s when she heard it.

Footsteps.

Then—

“Going somewhere, little sister?”

Aria froze.

A voice stepped from the shadows, smooth and low. She turned—